OT - Schlabach hammers Urban

From reading the article, the impression that I get is that Schlabach is mainly angry that Urban left Florida because of Schlabach's SEC homerism. That said, I enjoy reading anything that coherently argues that perhaps Urban won't win 9 straight MNC's at OSU.

I thought you were, but as the first reply in the thread and only tangentially related to the topic, I could have just been missing a joke.

I'm sort of torn on still calling it the MNC. On the one hand, there is a tournament, it only has two teams, but it is still a tournament to decide the national champion. But on the other, the method for choosing the participants is still arbitrary and shuts out potential claimants with relatively equal credentials.

It's definitely still mythical and at least with the old system everyone acknowledged that fact. Now we have a championship game that claims to objectively prove who the national champion is, when it rarely does.

Puh-leeze. The BS Sham-pionsip game is a beauty contest, where the two sexiest contestents get to play for what is supposed to be a championship, but is really a "closed shop." The only fair way to do it is a playoff with conference champions only, unless an indie with a decent schedule has as good a record as the champions do.

I would suggest that only major conferences with championship games have AQ status, with at large berths decided by play-ins between other conference champions and the best of the indies held during conference championship weekend. A total of eight teams could play the next weekend, followed by two bowls getting the semis, and a championship game being played when it is now: a week after the "New Year's" bowls.

The bowls would still get their money, and football would have a true champion. And that is exactly why the NCAA won't ever do it without tons of outside pressure from the networks and the anti-trust regulators.

The best team in the country wins the BCS national championship most years. The same can certainly not be said for any other NCAA championship tournament. UConn the best basketball team last year? Hot at the right time, but... please. Same for UMD in hockey. Sure the BCS isn't great, but if your goal is for the best team to win the championship, it's a hell of a lot better than a single elimination tournament. Your tournament would be fine with me becuase it limits it to 8 teams (the absolute meximum that would be reasonable), but only allowing conference champions is silly. Sorry, but Alabama is the second best team in the country. To keep them out of an 8 team tournament would be as stupid as keeping 2006 Michigan out.

But if you look at how the BCS tends to work out, it is basically a single-elimination tournament for everyone not in one of the four biggest conferences (and frankly, right now it basically is only the Big 12 and SEC teams that even get a sniff of a second chance). And if it holds serve this year, Alabama could not win its division or the SEC championship, beat LSU a month later, finish with the same record as LSU but without said championships, and still be the national champion. That seems far worse to me than UConn (a very good team last year) winning over a slightly more talented squad.

I know its semantics, but if the reason for why a national championship is considered mythical is that there isn't a "tournament" at the end to decide the matter on the field, then an argument can be made that the system in place that everyone has agreed to has done just that. I think it's a piss poor system and agree with all your critiques, but as it's only goal is to match up the two teams most qualifed to claim a national title, it has a claim that it's champion is not just the "mythical" national champion.

For the record, I prefer calling it the BCS Champion. The winner of the championship game is clearly that, and it also leaves room for the occasional USC that gets screwed out of a chance to be in the game to lay claim to National Champion if someone else bestows upon them the award.

Spencer at EDSBS, or maybe it was on the blog Saurian Sagacity (also UF), but about four years ago some UF blogger did a whole five-part post on the MNC/BCS mess. The main point he hammered is that the NCAA in no way recognizes the B(C)S "Champion" as having any kind of legitimacy with the NCAA; for instance, if you look at the year 2003/4, USC and LSU are both listed as MNC claimants, and the so-called BCS Championship in no way influences the NCAA record book on the topic. There is no formal connection between what the BCS has been given NCAA authority to do, and what the NCAA construes as an FBS National Champion, unlike the case in BB, where the NCAA runs everything.

Scrap the regular conference season. In those 8 weeks, have every team in the country enter a single-elimination tournament with 1 bye week each (2^7=128, so some byes for top 8?). When you get eliminated, you can start playing games with the other teams who have been eliminated on an ad-hoc basis. There's your playoff.

This more or less conforms with my reading of what happened. I think Meyer suspected it would all be downhill after Tebow and wanted to get out with his legend intact. Then the media called him on it, and he came back for one last, middling year, and bolted.

I'm really not that afraid of Meyer. He's a good coach, but he built his legend off of players recruited by Zook (who was always, even at IL, a good recruiter) and trained by top-notch coordinators like Strong and Mattison. Meyer's biggest effect is bringing his name to recruiting. For OSU's quality on the field, I'd look more closley at the names of the coordinators he brings in.I imagine they will be high level men, though.

This is silly. He went 17-6 at Bowling Green, with presumably few talent advantages going in. He went 22-2 at Utah, when they were an above average MWC team. The guy is clearly a talented coach. Ohio will be very good under his tenure. With Penn State's inevitable decline, they're probably going to dominate their division beginning in two years. But we'll be very good under Hoke as well.

What may hurt Meyer is that he's a step removed from the smart young coaches that he related to and hired as he moved up from BGSU to Utah to Florida. Most of those guys have moved onto head coaching jobs (Mullen, Addazio, Willingham) and its not clear from his attempts to replace his assistants at Florida that he has a great sense of who the best coaches in the next evolution of the read-option spread are, and he never had to hire a defensive coordinator at Florida, so we don't know about his coaching talent evaluation on defense.

As for Schlabach, anyone who writes that Urban Meyer overshadowed the Game last weekend has so little sense of what's going on around him that he doesn't deserve to be read.

Well, at Utah he had Alex Smith, who was a 2-time Heisman finalist and #1 overall draft pick - something the other MWC teams didn't have. Considering Meyer didn't bring him in, I'd say he had a major talent advantage at Utah over about any team he faced.

Also - Utah didn't hardly play anyone those two years. He beat Pitt in the Fiesta Bowl, but that's not a huge deal. He also lost to New Mexico. The MWC wasn't as good then as it is now, and he didn't schedule top-25 teams like Boise does.

I'm not trying to say he isn't a good coach, just that his Utah tenure wasn't so incredible. Plus, Utah has done as well against better competition since he left, even without Alex Smith.

Look, Urban's recruiting was taking a hit. He had other teams (Bama, LSU) pass him by. That is the truth.

If he stayed long term, I am sure he could have fought back. But he was looking at two or three really down years. Muschamp this year is not an aberration...it is a pretty good windown to what would have been Urban's record. Sure, he may have 1 or 2 more games, but he was not competing for championships.

Leaving UF, even for "health" reasons, after such great success was a good move. He was looking at a big dropoff and by leaving when he did, he perserved and even enhanced his market value.

His gamble here is that the sanctions will be manageable and early indications is that they are.

Truth be told, Ohio's coaches did a great job in the big game over the 7 year streak, so what is a new coach really going to contribute? If anything they take a hit for him bringing new people and implementing a new offense that current personnel may not be suited for.

I have faith that if we knock off Ohio next year, then do it again in Ann Arbor in 13,

he won't be around much longer. Ohio fans expect to win every game ever. From my experience, an overthrown pass by a freshman quarterback is enough to get the most rabid of buckeyes talking about a new coach, or coordinator, or a whole new staff.

Urban Meyer will not last. He's been the coach for 48 hours and Big Ten Network and ESPN are already asking how long it will take to get OSU back into the National Championship.

Schlabach does a good job of pointing out that he's faced less pressure than this before,

Yeah, Tressel was more consistent and probably at least as good a recruiter. So many people outside of the Michigan fan base are saying that we're screwed, but to me he's maybe equivalent to Tressel, and so what, we have Hoke.

As much as I hated Tressel, I don't think Meyer is anywhere near the coach that Tressel was. Tressel had been in Ohio for 3 decades, knew the state's talent inside and backwards and had time-built relationships with every HS coach in Ohio and many others in the midwest. Remember how hard it was to get Ohio guys with OSU offers when Tressel was there? It didn't matter what position.

Meyer will be able to recruit, but not like Tressel did. Meyer has the rings, Tressel had the rings too. Tressel had a Heisman QB. But up until this year, no one had anything bad to say about Jim Tressel, and parents loved him. Tressel rarely lost more than two games a year and always beat Michigan.

Once Urban loses to M a few times and doesn't win the Big Ten a few times, he'll come back down to earth, and just be a good coach at a good program - more Mark Richt than Pete Carroll.

Schlabach isn't the only person to say this. And I agree. He had an awesome run, but when it wasn't there, he wanted out. It's like when you dominate your little brother in Madden for years and he finally beats you, then you no longer feel like playing anymore. It's fun when you win, and when you finally get beat, it's not fun anymore. Urban is a winner, it's true. But only because he doesn't stick around long enough to be there when the losing happens.

His records at Florida:

2010: 8-5

2009 (Tebow's last year): 13-1

2008: 13-1

2007: 9-4

2006: 13-1

2005: 9-3

He had 5 very good years by most standards. Go going 57-10. I'd love for Brady Hoke to go 57-10 in 5 years. Then he had the year without Tebow. The offense didn't work well, the defense wasn't that great and he bolted. He knew it wasn't getting any better. He left. That's NOT who I'd want on the sidelines at OSU if I were an Ohio fan.

Luke Fickell may not have done well, but he was in an impossible situation and he wanted to be there for the long term.

Meyer will win with Braxton Miller and them at Ohio, but once that guy leaves, if he can't replace him with another great QB, it'll be the road for him.

I give the Zooker little credence but when asked whether Meyer would be sucessful at tOSU he said that he thought it was going to be a lot tougher than Meyer thought it would be to be successful in the B1G. Sour grapes perhaps but I think the Zooker is onto something.

Time will tell. Personally I would ove giving an annual beating to an Ohio at full strength that is not cheating. Hey wasn't that called the nineties?

"Urban Meyer has faith that there aren't more issues to emerge at Ohio State."

Seriously? Faith?? You have faith in a couple of guys who have repeatedly lied to everyone and downplayed everything that has happened you have you "faith" that there aren't any more issues? Urban, you really need to re-evaluate who you put your faith in if you actually believe that...

(Never mind that faith is generally religious and I'm 100% certain God isn't telling the NCAA not to punish Ohio for their transgressions...)

The best part of this article was the comment section from a Buckeye fan who said that the scandel was all part of the Ohio leadership's desire to bring Urban to Ohio. They put it into motion and fed Tressel to the wolves.

I have this feeling that Meyer will have learned from Rich Rod, and make a splashy DC hire. Given the talent in the state of Ohio, and the fact that most defensive starters return, he won't repeat our defensive sorrows 2008-10. They'll be good on that side of the ball, starting next year.

But I also wonder about his offense. Yes, he's had wild success elsewhere, and yes, he has Braxton Miller (an impressive talent, even if it pains me to say it). But who else does he have? A mediocre tight end, mediocre WRs and a mediocre RB all recruited to play in a pro-style offense. Sure Meyer will recruit his own guys, but we know that this takes time. I think this offense, even if Meyer takes a "work-with-who-we've-got" approach, will take 3 years before it starts to look the way he wants it to. Just like it did with us, and just like it's currently panning out for Brian Kelly.

Will Ohio's spoiled, entitled fan base--which fully expects a national championship every year under Meyer--be patient during 2 or even 3 years without a Big 10 championship? They got used to one every year under Tressel, and the new structure of the conference makes it considerably harder to earn one.

OSU has to be the favorites to win their division next year, don't they? Miller coming back. Almost all of their defense returning. They have to replace 3/5 of their o-line and Herron, but Stoneburner's a good TE and Meyer showed with Hernandez that he can be creative with the TE. Their receivers are meh, but that offense doesn't need supremely talented receivers to do well. And look at the rest of the division...

Wisconsin's losing Wilson and the whole reason UW pursued him was that their existing QBs looked totally incompetent in spring practice. They also lose Toon and a good deal of their o-line. Penn State will still be feeling the reprecussions of their disaster and breaking in a new coach, new qb (I'm assuming McGloin is a senior, not that it matters), and lose a good deal of their defense. Illinois, Indiana, and Purdue don't even really deserve mention.

They do have a tough schedule, though. They get Nebraska and UM in the horseshoe and have to go to Lansing, Madison and Penn State. Still, even with an entirely new coaching staff, they have the fewest questions of anyone in that division.

ESPN would never be the first to bash Urban, OSU or Florida. But the Twitter world started calling them out for it after Forde published this and looks like they went to Schlabach and told him to rewrite the same article.